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| Photo Credit: AP. |
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Long lines of cars on roads snaking to Russia’s border crossings with Georgia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, and similar queues at airports.
Angry
demonstrations — not just in Moscow and St. Petersburg — but in the remote far
north province of Yakutia and in the southern region of Dagestan, with women
chasing a police officer and shouting, “No to war!”
A gunman who
opened fire in an enlistment office in a Siberian city and gravely wounded the
military commandant, saying, “We will all go home now.”
Five days
after President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization to call up
hundreds of thousands of reservists to fight in Ukraine, the move has triggered
outraged protests, a fearful exodus and acts of violence across the vast
country.
“Panic. All
the people I know are in panic,” said David, a Russian who gave only his first
name out of fear of reprisals, in an interview with The Associated Press at a
border crossing with Georgia. “We are running from the regime that kills
people.”
While the
Kremlin had wanted to promote its orchestrated referendums in occupied parts of
Ukraine as a joyful event, with those regions expected to join Russia in a move
similar to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, it instead is dealing with
instability and chaos at home.
State-run
rallies were held in Moscow and other cities celebrating the referendums even
before the the conclusion of several days of balloting that has been denounced
as pre-ordained, phony and illegitimate by Kyiv and the West.
In his
address on Wednesday announcing the mobilization, Putin said the Kremlin would
“support” the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in their
push to be incorporated into Russia.
But the mood
in Russia has been anything but festive.
Fears are
running high that Moscow might close the borders to men of fighting age after
the referendums in Ukraine end, prompting long lines of cars at Russia’s
frontiers. Telegram chats dedicated to some of these crossings swelled with
thousands of new users.
The lines
apparently persisted Monday. The online service Yandex Maps showed a
18-kilometer traffic jam on a road in Russia’s region of North Ossetia that
leads up to the border with Georgia, and the regional branch of the Federal
Security Service, or FSB, deployed an armored vehicle to the crossing.
Officials
told Russia’s RBC news site that the action came “just in case the reservists
want to break through the (border) checkpoint and leave the country without
completing any border formalities,” promising not to restrict any exits.
“Call-up
notices are being served to everyone. Nobody knows who will receive one
tomorrow and therefore we decided with friends for the time being to rest in a
beautiful country,” said Roman Isif, a Russian who crossed into Larsi, Georgia,
in an interview with AP.
Long queues
and crowds were reported Sunday in at least two of four Moscow airports.
Tickets to destinations still available to Russians after the European Union
halted all direct flights – such as Turkey, Armenia, Serbia and Dubai – have
been sold out for days, despite exorbitant prices.
Russian
media — including state-run outlets — reported Monday that border guards have
started turning men away at the border, citing mobilization law. It wasn’t
immediately clear how widespread the practice was.
Although
state television painted a rosy picture of the mobilization drive, with Russia
1 TV on Sunday showing crowds of eager men lining up to enlist “in almost every
region,” the reality was different.
Enlistment
offices and other administrative buildings have been set on fire since the
start of the call-up. Although such incidents, usually involving Molotov
cocktails, have been common during the 7-month-old invasion, they have grown in
number and frequency after Putin’s speech.
Russian
independent news outlets counted at least 17 such incidents in recent days, on
top of 37 before the mobilization was announced.
A man walked
into the enlistment office in the Siberian city of Ust-Ilimsk and opened fire,
shooting the military commandant at close range.
Russian
media reported the man, identified as Ruslan Zinin, 25, was upset that his best
friend who didn’t have any combat experience was called up. Authorities have
said such experience would be the main criteria for the mobilization.
Zinin, who
was arrested, reportedly said, “No one will go fighting,” and “We will all go
home now.” His victim was hospitalized in intensive care in an “extremely grave”
condition, the reports said.
Also on
Monday, a man at a bus station in Ryazan, a city about 200 kilometers southeast
of Moscow, reportedly doused himself with a flammable liquid and set himself on
fire, shouting he didn’t want to take part in Russia’s “special military
operation” in Ukraine. He reportedly sustained minor injuries and was detained
by police.
As troubling
as these incidents are, it is the spread of protests to far-flung strongholds
of Putin’s base of support that could be more concerning for the Kremlin, with
women confronting authorities about “taking our sons.” Although the
mobilization was said to total about 300,000 men, some media reports claim the
authorities plan to muster more than 1 million, which Moscow denied.
Even though
initial demonstrations against the mobilization were brutally suppressed by
police, with hundreds detained shortly after it was announced, more have broken
out in various regions. Over the weekend, women rallied against the call-up in
the remote province of Yakutia in Russia’s far north.
In
Mahachkala, the capital of the predominantly Muslim province of Dagestan, a
crowd of women in headscarves gathered Sunday, chanting “No to war.” Some of
them chased a police officer away from the protest, while others stood in front
of a police car, preventing it from moving and demanding the release of
detained protesters inside.
Protests in
Dagestan continued Monday, with demonstrators clashing with police. Outrage
also spilled into the streets of another North Caucasus region,
Kabardino-Balkaria. Video showed a crowd of women surrounding a man in a suit,
identified by the media as a local official, with one screaming: “Do you know
where you’re sending him?” — an apparent reference to someone close to her
being mobilized.
Dagestan, as
well as the Siberian region of Buryatia, are among several regions where there
are complaints that a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities have been
deployed to fight and have died in Ukraine.
“For our
state, we are not its citizens, but cannon fodder in this war. Just a
resource,” said Pavel, a 40-year-old resident of Buryatia who fled to Mongolia
last week to avoid getting called up. He spoke to AP on condition that his last
name not be used, fearing retribution.
“Siberia and
the Far East are being actively sold — timber, minerals, land leased for 50
years. And it turns out that people living here are also processed as a
resource,” he added.
Putin is
“risking a lot by announcing mobilization, he’s losing support, he’s creating a
pre-revolutionary situation – protests, arson incidents at enlistment offices,”
political analyst Abbas Gallyamov told AP.
Given the
atmosphere of instability and Russia’s recent battlefield setbacks, the
referendums in Ukraine are unlikely to have any influence on public opinion, he
said.
“No one
needs these referendums – not the Russian public, not even the patriots anymore,”
Gallyamov added. aid.
Andrei
Kolesnikov, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
pointed out that polls indicate about half the Russian people unconditionally
support the war, with about a third whose backing comes with caveats.
The latter
constitutes “a reservoir of doubt and discontent,” Kolesnikov told AP. “It is
already clear that the mobilization is not partial, and if this becomes more
and more obvious, then the mood may begin to change. Putin is taking a big risk.”
Michael Kohn
in Bend, Oregon, contributed.
Follow AP’s
coverage of Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine